Finance Analyst

Contract

This is a Consultancy contract. More about Consultancy contracts.

Result of Service

The Consultant should accurately produce grant reports, manage project implementation and ensure timely processing of payments.

Work Location

Kenya

Expected duration

8 months

Duties and Responsibilities

BACKGROUND

The United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) is mandated by the UN General Assembly to promote socially, economically and environmentally sustainable cities, towns and other human settlements. It is the focal point for urbanization and human settlements matters within the UN system.

As part of UN-Habitat’s efforts to provide technical support to countries worldwide for efficient monitoring and reporting on urban development agendas, the Data and Analytics Unit (DAU - formerly known as Global Urban Observatory - GUO) under the Knowledge and Innovation branch, is currently leading SDG 11 and the New Urban Agenda (NUA) monitoring at the global level. This task involves development of methodologies which are globally applicable and adaptable to the country level for urban data generation, their piloting, building the capacity of countries to use these methods and undertake continuous reporting on the urban related indicators, and supporting countries and cities to generate accurate and up to date data which is used for national and global reporting on the progress towards sustainable cities and human settlements.

A major cross-cutting aspect that significantly contributes to how urban monitoring is implemented is how the unit of analysis - the city/urban area - is defined. In a bid to promote the production of urban data that is comparable within and between countries, UN-Habitat has been working with the European Commission and other global partners to harmonize how cities and urban areas are defined, particularly for reporting against the SDGs and NUA. Between 2018 and 2019, UN-Habitat and the European Commission successfully implemented a project titled “Assessing the feasibility of applying a global definition of cities/urban areas in support of global monitoring of SDGs and NUA urban targets”, through which the people based harmonized approach to defining cities and urban areas, titled the Degree of Urbanization concept (DEGURBA), was introduced to 85 countries Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), Arab States and Asia and the Pacific regions. Following these consultations, UN member states, during the 51st UN Statistical Commission meeting (March 2020) endorsed DEGURBA as a sound approach to defining urban and rural areas for statistical comparisons. With this endorsement, the statistical commission asked the method’s promoters to pilot its implementation and built capacities of countries to apply the approach, and report back progress in subsequent sessions. To respond to this recommendation, UN-Habitat and the European Commission, in coordination with other partners developed the project titled “Application of the DEGURBA approach to generate comparable urban data in selected countries”. The project, which will be implemented in 13 countries between September 2021 and December 2022 has a goal of strengthening the capacity of national governments to adopt and apply DEGURBA in the definition of urban areas for the computation of SDG 11 indicators.

RESPONSIBILITIES

The consultant will work in the Data and Analytics Unit, under the direct supervision of its Chief. She/he will be responsible for the following tasks: a. Collate into an overall financial report all the expenditures from the EU and SIDA grants. b. Contribute to programme and project development through performance and financial management and monitoring as well as evaluation of internal and external processes towards the advancement of the Unit’s goals and objectives. c. Prepare interim and final financial reports for the branch’s grants. d. Regular review of the budget forecast and co-funding expenditure levels; ensure expenditure rate as per agreement requirements. e. Conduct financial grant closure of closed Grants in DAU f. Contribute to strategic planning; preparation of progress reports; compiling relevant information; and identifying and synthesizing best practices and lessons learnt directly linked to Programme objectives; g. Organize workshops and consultations and prepare relevant background papers;

Qualifications/special skills

A first level degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics, Business Management, or any related discipline is required. At least 2 years of relevant experience in finance and donor reporting is required. Experience working in ERP systems, such as Umoja, is desirable. Working experience within the United Nations System or similar organization is desirable.

Languages

For this consultancy, fluency in oral and written English is required. Although not a requirement, knowledge of any other UN language will be an advantage.

Additional Information

Not available.

No Fee

THE UNITED NATIONS DOES NOT CHARGE A FEE AT ANY STAGE OF THE RECRUITMENT PROCESS (APPLICATION, INTERVIEW MEETING, PROCESSING, OR TRAINING). THE UNITED NATIONS DOES NOT CONCERN ITSELF WITH INFORMATION ON APPLICANTS’ BANK ACCOUNTS.